Through the secondary characters and sub-plots, Achebe discusses in Things Fall Apart, themes such as gender roles to show how the themes were used or conceived in the specific context. This assists the reader to posses a clearer understanding of how these themes were portrayed in the specific context.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Things Fall Apart: Tragic Hero
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a book about the
protagonist, Okonkwo, who is highly acclaimed by his tribe for his
accomplishments. Even though his father was shamed across his tribe, he had
manage to resurrect his family name. This book was meant to be a reataliation
of other books written by white men who try to comment on his society. The book
shows that there was a community and structure based on tradition and beliefs
that the outsiders could not understand. The main character, Okonkwo, goes
through some unfortunate hardships that he doesn’t realize where caused by his
own actions until later in the book. Why would Achebe use the tragic hero
archetype for Okonkwo? The first reason that would come to mind is to help
normalize what the “outsiders” would think about the people. This would help stabilize
the view of these cultures rather than exaggerating and misconstruing their
society. In more detail, the situation in where Okonkwo climbs and falls in the
rankings. He built himself up from the rubble of his father’s legacy (or the
lack there of) and then he fell off. People in many society’s outside of the
one in the book can relate to this situation. Of course he does include the cultural
context (e.g. The locusts ruining their land yet they see it as a fortune,
beating his wife during the peace week). Achebe wants to show how, even though they are
originated from different ideals and beliefs, that their system’s structure is
organized and somewhat similar to the “outsiders”, more specifically the white Europeans.
This similarity could help them stabilize and limit the exaggeration of
barbaricness that could be the basis of why the Europeans colonize.
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Colonization of the Ibo
Greetings to the Members of the Royal Colonial Institute. I
have come in peace to discuss the process of colonization. Colonization is altered
from how members of your group display it to the people of equal or higher
class than yourselves. This affects both parties at hand and I will begin to
explain exactly how this could occur. Let’s commence with the colonized. The perceived
goal is to implement an organized political and religious structure to our
society to help improve functionality. However, once colonialization begins,
things fall apart. The population that these folk are trying to control could
already have a structure that may seem folly and counter intuitive to outsiders
but is esoteric and could only be understood by the people that animate the
society. We already formatted our own civilized culture. But people like
yourselves could not fathom the complexities that is our system. The same goes
for our religion. You could never understand it if it struck your head. So, your
misconstrued persecution of our society and culture gives justification that
you are allowed to manipulate our people, or even cause mass genocide to reach
your goals. Knowledge is never complete: two heads are better than one. Your
perception, your knowledge of us isn’t the correct and complete knowledge. After
you have full control over our communities, you begin implementing your beliefs
into our system. You expect us to disregard the information we espoused since
our youth. The people will reject the beliefs. This will cause more harm to
both parties, especially the colonized as they are forced to learn the information.
You also apply strange rules into our society that give our people a disadvantage
and punish us if we break them. Another
point is the power. You have more power and also have a thirst for our
resources as your resource are near inhabited population with class. You think
we are an unwise people and will allow you to take what you like. But we
understand the goal and the consequences that it will have on the Ibo people. So,
you use your overpowered techniques to murder our people and enslave the next
generation into destroying their own land and doing the work that you wouldn’t do.
This unethical and shouldn’t be tolerated, but we cannot battle each other for
our land. Once you have reached your goals and decide that we are useless and
invaluable to you, you will leave us. But people will begin to discuss your atrocities
that you’ve committed selfishly, which will damage your reputation. We must rethink
our approach to colonialization and domestication or it will ruin the perception
of each other’s parties and their reputation. The colonialized will have a
belief that any exterior population are dangerous and they will begin to associate
significant differences, like skin color, to certain situations.
Friday, February 24, 2017
Coriolanus Characterization
In the beginning of Shakespeare’s play, Coriolanus, many
events happen in which helps directly and indirectly characterize Marcius. This
is something average and that any play should accomplish. However, a deeper
look at the characterization can reveal the larger purpose of his characterization
in act one.
Let’s start with the genre. Usually a play like this from Shakespeare
is heralded as a tragedy. Although it does have qualities that inherently make
it a tragedy, it is considered a political play. The characterization usually
begins to fulfil at the apex of the climax in a play. This is to indirectly characterize
the character’s qualities though his actions. But this play does not have that copacetic
layout that we are accustomed to. The climax of the play is the start of the
play. The action and combat takes place at the beginning of the play rather
than the middle. The battle of the Volsces. The climax would be the most
coherent place to indirectly show the characteristics of a Coriolanus in
battle. What does this mean for the purpose. Well as this looks more at
politics and less at “your average tragedy play”, it makes sense that the
layout of the plot would be so paramount compared to tragedies. And that it
makes it easier for the viewer to understand why Coriolanus might do what he is
doing. Instead of questioning themselves, the viewer can now understand the character
of Coriolanus.
Another, would be the setting. The act largely takes place
at a battle setting. This would be the rising action of the play already before
he gets exiled (more on that later). In the setting, there wouldn’t be many
moments were a character can start a dialogue constantly or have a conversation
with another character. It just continuous battle. But the author takes
advantage of this scene to indirectly characterize Coriolanus. The battlefield
would be the best place since most of his accomplishment or his qualities would
be expressed through his actions rather than his words.
Lastly would be conflicts and the consequences in the coming
acts. Later in the play, he tries to force people to vote him into consul. But
the people start to recall the time Coriolanus mocked the people who voted for
him, which were usually poorer, less noble people than he was. And he gets exiled
from the city as his opposition uses the situation to their advantage. This
again links back to the point I made previously. The incipient part of the play
characterizes Coriolanus so the audience does not question his future actions
and instead can grasp the reason why he would do so.
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